Expired Film Treasure: 135-size Kodak Panatomic-X (Abandoned Films 05)

Introduction

Oh, oh, trouble. A fellow on eBay advertised a brick of Kodak Panatomic-X film in 135 size (for regular 35mm cameras) that he said had been frozen. Long-term readers know that I have been using my dwindling stash of 120-size Panatomic-X for the last few years with great success (please click the link). Many photographers on the web claim to miss it. And now I could try some of this classic film in my 35mm cameras? This was too good to resist; I bought six rolls and loaded a camera. 

Eastman Kodak introduced Panatomic in 1933. It was designed to be an extremely fine grain film, which meant it could be enlarged for large prints and still retain details. The early version was on nitrate base, but around 1937, Kodak reformulated it on safety base, renaming it Panatomic-X. Sadly, Kodak discontinued this well-loved product around 1988 or 1989, claiming that TMax 100 could serve as a substitute. Maybe this is true, but many photographers regretted the loss of the older film. Used with top-grade lenses and careful technique (that means a tripod), the detail in a Panatomic-X negative is remarkable, even in this age of high-megapixel digital cameras.

There is always a risk with using expired film, but slow speed black and white emulsions usually age well with minimal fog problems. If the films have been refrigerated or frozen, they typically are completely usable. Long-term readers may recall that I had great results with 1960s GAF Verapan film packs that had been frozen for 50 years. Color film is much more susceptible to color shifts and other issues, but if you find some old black and white film, by all means try it.

Here are scenes from in and around Vicksburg, Mississippi, from my new/old Panatomic-X film. Judge for yourself if you like the look or tonality. I resized to 1600 pixels on the long dimension. Click a picture to enlarge it. Please comment if you have some observations.

Levee Street

Former cotton compress, Levee Street (35mm ƒ/3.5 Super-Takumar lens, yellow filter, ¼ ƒ/11.5, overcast with drizzle)

Former tank farm, Levee Street (28mm ƒ/3.5 SMC Takumar lens, yellow-green filter, ⅛ ƒ/8)

Tugs on Yazoo Canal (28mm ƒ/3.5 SMC Takumar lens, yellow-green filter, ⅛ ƒ/8)

Levee Street has remnants of Vicksburg's industrial infrastructure. There is a lot of barge traffic on the Yazoo Canal. The old tank farm in the photograph above has been unused for at least three decades, but in late 2020 I saw that one of the tanks had been removed and the piping had been cleaned and painted. These photographs are from an overcast day with occasional drizzle.

KCS rail yard, Levee St. (Leica IIIC, 50mm ƒ/2 Jupiter-8 lens, yellow filter, 1/20 ƒ/11)

Second Street

This stucco-clad house on the corner of Second and National Streets has been uninhabited for three decades, but it is not abandoned. Someone painted the exterior not long ago. A neighbor came over when I was photographing and said the sheriff pays him to mow the grass. The old Plymouth and pickup truck have been in the carport for decades. Status: unknown.

Yazoo Street

Yazoo Street (35mm ƒ/3.5 Super-Takumar lens, 1/30 ƒ/4.0, hand-held)

Yazoo Street runs south from Army-Navy Drive past the City workshops and dead ends almost under the North Frontage Road bridge. Decades ago, you could see more houses in this quiet corner of town, but now only this one house remains. The air was misty, accounting for the glow in the tree canopy.

Clay Street

Adolph Rose Antiques, 717 Clay Street (Leica M2, 35mm ƒ/2 Summicron lens, 1 sec. exposure)

Thank you, Malcolm and Karen, for letting me take some photographs in the interesting Adolph Rose Antiques. 

Lot behind 1220 Washington Street (Leica M2, 25mm ƒ/4 Color-Skopar lens, ¼ sec. ƒ/8.0½)

Lower Clay Street, near the Yazoo Canal, was once lined with commercial buildings and warehouses. A few still exist. Just west of Washington Street, an alley gives access to the back lots of some of the old commercial buildings. 

Washington Street

 

2016 Washington Street (35 mm ƒ/2 Summicron lens, yellow filter, 1/125 ƒ/2.8½)

This forlorn building is one of the few commercial buildings remaining just south of downtown. Notice the brickwork on the right unit, evidence of fine construction a century ago. 

Rifle Range Road

Abandoned (or forgotten) timber rail cars (55mm ƒ/1.8 Super-Takumar lens)

These rail cars are parked on the tracks next to Halcros Chemical, just south of Rifle Range Road. Status: unknown.

US 61 South

Church, 3922 US 61 South, Vicksburg (Leica 50mm Summicron-DR lens, yellow-green filter)

Natchez

C&M Crawfish, US 98, Natchez (25mm ƒ/4 Color-Skopar lens)

This is another former gas station on US 98 a few miles northeast of Natchez. I liked the light shining on the cracked driveway. 

Jackson

Pump house at Mississippi River Basin Model, Buddy Butts Park, Jackson (25mm ƒ/4 Color-Skopar lens)

This is a pump house at the US Army Corps of Engineers' Mississippi River Basin Model, the largest hydraulic model of a watershed ever built. The site has been neglected for decades and is finally being cleaned by the Friends of the Mississippi River Basin Model non-profit organization. I have written about the model many times; please use the search button to find older posts.

Conclusions

This is another pleasant surprise! This long-expired Panatomic-X film appears to be totally viable. 

I cannot recommend one way or the other if you should seek out rolls of Panatomic-X. But if you find a stash in a relative's house or closet, go for it. I suggest you expose it at EI=20, making this largely a tripod film. It certainly is not as convenient to use as Fuji Acros or Kodak TMax 100, but the Panatomic-X has a different look (Sorry, I cannot describe it any differently). 

This is another example of the sophistication and precision of photographic film manufacture that was achieved more than a half century ago. Don't let anyone tell you that film is primitive or obsolete. 

My friend, Mike, from Photography & Vintage Film Cameras in Albuquerque shot one of these rolls and also got excellent results. Click the link for his interesting blog.

This is no. 5 of my irregular series on Abandoned Films ("Films from the Dead").

Demolished: Historic House/Office on Clay Street, Vicksburg, Mississippi

In early December (2019), my wife told me that she saw a house on Clay Street being pulled down. That was odd but not unique for this city. I headed over with my Rolleiflex, and sure enough, the back of the house was already crushed. I had not previously paid any attention to this house. It looked like many others that formerly lined Clay Street, built in an era when there were many residences on this road. It was gloomy and wet, perfect for this type of scene (and my favorite photography light). The Vicksburg Post reported:

Vicksburg Post, Dec. 9, 2019:

If you are one of the hundreds of drivers who pass along Clay Street each day and happened to notice what looked like a home that had collapsed, don’t worry; it’s collapsed on purpose. 

The now-vacant building, located at 2603 Clay St. that was once a chiropractic clinic, is being torn down by its new owners. 

Monday morning, a track hoe was working on the rear of the sloping building that once faced the Firestone Auto Care Center on Clay St. 

“I acquired this property back in early spring, and was hoping to save it, but it just wasn’t worth saving. I wished it was,” property owner Pat Daughtry said. “It was too close to the street; it was right up on Clay Street.” He said the property will be up for sale after the building is removed. 

According to Vicksburg city directories from 1958 and 1966, the building housed the practice of chiropractor John W. Donovan. Daughtry said the building was built for Donovan’s practice before Clay Street was widened from two to four lanes and had room for cars. 

“It was set back just enough to where they had an entrance and enough room to park,” he said, adding the clinic was at street level and the living area downstairs under the clinic.
According to county property tax records, the most recent use of the building was as a duplex.

I spoke to Mrs. Daughtry one day at the supermarket. She said her husband had hoped to restore or move the building, but it was just too badly decayed. Also, there was almost no space in front after Clay Street had been widened to four lanes.

The photograph above is from a Rolleiflex 3.5E medium format camera with 75mm ƒ/3.5 Xenotar lens on Kodak Panatomic-X film. Praus Productions in Rochester, NY, developed the film in Xtol developer. I scanned the negative with a Minolta Scan Multi medium format film scanner.

No more shopping: the dead A&P Supermarket of Vicksburg

Former A&P supermarket, 1016 Mission 66, Vicksburg (Panasonic G3 digital camera)

When my wife and I first moved to Vicksburg, the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, better known as A&P, still operated two supermarkets in town. One was at 1016 Mission 66. The other was at the location now occupied by Fred's Super Dollar at 3427 Halls Ferry Road. By the mid-1980s, A&P was already a tired old company with unattractive stores, uninteresting food merchandise, and, to be blunt, questionable maintenance and cleanliness.

The company started as a coffee and tea company in 1859. It grew rapidly in the late-1800s, and by the early 20th century, the A&P was one of the world's largest retailers. According to Wikipedia,

"In 1930, A&P, now the world's largest retailer, reached $2.9 billion in sales ($44.4 billion today) with 16,000 stores. In 1936, it adopted the self-serve supermarket concept and opened 4,000 larger stores (while phasing out many of its smaller units) by 1950. 

A&P's decline began in the early 1950s, when it failed to keep pace with competitors that opened larger supermarkets with more modern features demanded by customers. By the 1970s, A&P stores were outdated, and its efforts to combat high operating costs resulted in poor customer service."

A new CEO tried to save the company in 2010 by developing "Values,""Goals," "Strategies," and "Burning imperatives."

"The burning imperative is a sharply defined, intensely shared, and purposefully urgent understanding from each of the team members of what they are “supposed to do, now.” Get this created and bought into early on—even if it’s only 90 percent right. You, and the team, will adjust and improve along the way." (from Forbes, 2011)

OK, well, you know where that went. Whenever some CEO starts to blather about goals or values, run.

I recall shopping (rarely) at the A&P in Warwick, Rhode Island, in the late 1970s, and being unimpressed with the ambience or experience. I recall a very smelly bag of potatoes because one deep inside was rotted.

Oddly enough, A&P's Bokar coffee was pretty good, and in the 1980s, A&P may have been the only source for coffee beans in Vicksburg. Yes, Vicksburg was a coffee desert back then. I usually mail-ordered coffee beans from Houston, Texas, but occasionally I was caught beanless and hopped into the A&P. The Eight O'Clock variety was pretty weak, not worth grinding and brewing. A&P sold off the Eight O'Clock coffee manufacturing unit in 2003, and I am amazed that someone still owns the trademark and sells it at various merchants, such as Amazon and larger Kroger stores.

The Mission 66 A&P building is still sitting unused, decade after decade. The building is reasonably intact and I am surprised that it has not been vandalized.

Linoleum or vinyl floor, drop ceiling - so 1970s.

 Some little person left their toys on a window sill?

The rear of the cinderblock building is a disgusting mess. I wonder if the flooded loading ramp is a mosquito-breeding swamp? Any interesting snakes? Originally, a drain connected to the storm drains, but clearly the bottom of the ramp has become clogged with debris. A 2004 Vicksburg Post article addressed the standing water with respect to West Nile Virus.

These images are from 2014, but from the road, I see no change. These are digital files from a Panasonic G3 digital camera. This was an excellent little camera which served me well around town and even on Mt. Kilimanjaro. The wide-angle views were from the Olympus M ED 9-18mm ƒ/4.0-5.6 micro Four Thirds Lens.

Vicksburg in the Fog/Mist 2018 (Tri-X film in Hasselblad)

Walnut Street with St. Paul's Catholic Church and USACE Mississippi River Division office, 50mm Distagon lens.

Old Court House Museum from Relax Inn 4th floor, 250mm lens.

Winter is the best time to wander around Vicksburg and take photographs. The light is soft, the temperature reasonably comfortable, and the results look different than the normal bright sunny day snaps with harsh shadows. One misty day last January, I loaded some Tri-X 400 in the Hasselblad and wandered around town.

Walnut Street, view north from Relax Inn, 50mm Distagon lens. 

The manager of the Relax Inn generously let me take my tripod and camera up to the 4th floor balcony. There is a good view of the Old Court House Museum from there, and I was testing my new/old $87 250mm Sonnar lens. For the views of Walnut Street, I leaned out over the edge of the balcony wall and held the camera sideways. With the Hasselblad's waist-level finder, you can still see the ground glass while holding the body out to the side.

Clay Street, Vicksburg

Clay Street drops downhill quite steeply from the intersection with Cherry street. The ugly white slab on the right is the Thomas Building, which seems to be perpetually for rent. For some reason, it is a troubled or unusable building.

A two-floor asbestos-clad house sits next to Stouts Bayou at 900 National Street. The house has been empty for years. The open windows are a bad sign.

Vicksburg Southern Railroad tracks at Haining Road, 250mm Sonnar lens.

Vicksburg Southern Railroad tracks view south from Haining Road.

Haining Road leads to the Port of Vicksburg and crosses the railroad tracks at the junction with North Washington Street. The buildings on either side are part of the Anderson Tully wood mill, which now has a new owner.

Vicksburg Southern Railroad tracks view north from Ford Road. (Kodak Panatomic-X film (expired 1989), 250mm Sonnar lens, March 2018).

This is an March view of the tracks north of the Anderson Tully complex.

Grammer Street, Vicksburg, 250mm Sonnar lens

Finally, here are the remaining shotgun houses on Grammar Street. Once, both sides of the street (alley) were lined with these cottages, but most have been demolished over the years. In a previous post, I showed scans of Kodachrome slides from the 1990s and early 2000s.

We will look at more Vicksburg scenes in future posts.

Clay Street Collapse - the Remnants

Long-term readers may remember that in 2011, I summarized the sordid story of how the late-1800s commercial building at 515 Clay Street, Vicksburg, collapsed in January of 2006. Fortunately, no one was killed, but a car was squashed. Thereafter, the City of Vicksburg and the owners of the building fought in court for years about whether they could demolish the remains, and Clay street was partially blocked for months with a pile of bricks. It was a comedy of errors.

Well, eight years later, the street is clear, but there is still debris in the old lot. This is a view looking north across the lot.

This is the view from Clay Street looking east to the site where 515 Clay once stood. The building in the back is the Adolph Rose Building.

This is a portion of the basement that survived.

This is the view east along Clay Street from the newly renovated 1903-vintage First National Bank building. Some very nice apartments, known as The Lofts, have opened there and will offer high-end downtown residences. It is nice to see the downtown revitalized.  The Adolph Rose building, in the center left, lost a big section of brick wall when no. 515 collapsed (see the first figure). The light-colored section of bricks shows the repaired section. As another example of revitalization, the old Strand Theater in the basement of the Rose has reopened. The Strand, operated by Westside Theater Foundation, offers independent international films. I wrote about the Strand in a 2011 article. Folks, support your downtown businesses and merchants!

Aug. 24, 2014 update: here is a post card from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. It is an undated view of Clay Street with the Adolph Rose building in the center of the block, behind the trolley car.

The Strand Theatre, Vicksburg, Mississippi

Vicksburg once had as many as four downtown theaters (cinemas). Some of my coworkers remember how they saw a show at least weekly, often on Saturday night. One of these was the Saenger Theater at 1203 Walnut Street, whose roof was blown off in the 1953 tornado. A number of children were killed. A dramatic post-storm photograph is at this web page: Saenger
The subject of this post is the Strand Theater, located in the Adolph Rose Building at 717 Clay Street. The Adolph Rose is the handsome gold-colored building in the undated postcard, from the Cooper postcard collection at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

The theater operated from 1932-1963 and afterwards housed a Civil War slide and sound show called "The Vanishing Glory." Glory closed about 2005 and the space has been unused since then. The photograph above shows the configuration when Vanishing Glory used it. The screen was mounted in front of a partition that split the original long seating area, leaving an unused area behind. Originally, this would have been an unusually long, skinny venue to show movies.

The prominent local merchant, Adolph Rose, built the handsome Victorian Romanesque building about 1890 for his goods company (Vicksburg Post, 12 June 2011). At that time, it did not contain a theater. Around 1930, it was sold to Feld Furniture, and the ground floor was renovated to house two long thin commercial establishments, a store on the left (now an antique store), and the theater on the right. The seating area extended most of the way from the lobby to the stage at the rear of the building. It must have been a rather odd tunnel-like geometry where the front patrons were practically under the screen and the rear patrons a long way off. The photograph above shows the original stage at the back of the building. This is the area that Vanishing glory closed off and was unused after 1963.

When the theater was retrofitted into the Adolph Rose building, the walls were made of painted press-board. The fitting was skillful, and you can see how the panels curved at the edges of the ceiling. I suppose press-board was selected because it absorbs sound. The sound came from a huge RCA speaker behind the screen. The box is still present, but the speaker units are gone.

The second floor is rather interesting. The little storage room with the racks was for storing film reels. A trap door on the floor opened and a large fan in the wall drew up air though the room and across the reels. Before about 1940, most commercial film was nitrate-based and could spontaneously ignite when it degassed. Theater designers then knew that the film had to be ventilated to reduce the danger of fire. (As an aside, that is why modern photo film has "Safety Film" printed on the edge: it is Ester or Polyester-base and does not ignite spontaneously.) Archivists now store historic movie reels in refrigerated rooms. 

This is the projection booth. It is lined with steel, again to reduce the danger of a fire burning down the rest of the building. The projectors (long gone) were mounted on the floor and projected out small openings to the screen far away. So much heat was generated, the projectors were vented to metal flue pipes that went up to the roof. The earliest projectors may have used carbide lamps. The booth windows were equipped with guillotine-style sliding panels. The panels were held up with steel wires equipped with a lead plug. If a fire broke out, the plug melted and the guillotine door popped down abruptly, cutting off the air supply.

Here are some papers and remains on a shelf in the projection room, including IRS instructions for tax year 1966.

This is the balcony, where "colored" people had to sit in the old days. When I lived in Asia in the 1950s, we white Europeans sat in the balcony.

The lobby area was extensively changed by Vanishing Glory, but a few remnants from the movie era remain.

The good news is that Westside Theatre Foundation, a Vicksburg theater group, is renovating the old Strand and plans to hold live performance there. They have removed the partition wall and will expand the original 1920s stage. Jack Burns generously let me take photographs a few weeks ago. It is an ambitious project and I'm thrilled they have taken it on. They currently hold their productions at the Coral Room in the Vicksburg Hotel, another historic building in Vicksburg that needs its own blog entry.

I took these digital images with with a Sony DSC-R1 digital camera, tripod-mounted.
Update April 2012: Westside is holding stage productions in the Strand and a movie program has begun. The movies are projected from a digital projector, not film as in the old days, but a 16mm projector is available if ever needed. Here is a poster from the famous (infamous?) Reefer Madness.